20 January 2024

from Tom Brown's Schooldays, part II, chapter I, How the Tide Turned (Thomas Hughes)

Within a few minutes therefore of their entry, all the other boys who slept in Number 4 had come up. The little fellows went quietly to their own beds, and began undressing, and talking to each other in whispers; while the elder, amongst whom was Tom, sat chatting about on one another's beds, with their jackets and waistcoats off. Poor little Arthur was overwhelmed with the novelty of his position. The idea of sleeping in the room with strange boys had clearly never crossed his mind before, and was as painful as it was strange to him. He could hardly bear to take his jacket off; however, presently, with an effort, off it came, and then he paused and looked at Tom, who was sitting at the bottom of his bed talking and laughing.

“Please, Brown,” he whispered, “may I wash my face and hands?”

“Of course, if you like,” said Tom, staring; “that's your washhand-stand, under the window, second from your bed. You'll have to go down for more water in the morning if you use it all.” And on he went with his talk, while Arthur stole timidly from between the beds out to his washhand-stand, and began his ablutions, thereby drawing for a moment on himself the attention of the room.

On went the talk and laughter. Arthur finished his washing and undressing, and put on his night-gown. He then looked round more nervously than ever. Two or three of the little boys were already in bed, sitting up with their chins on their knees. The light burned clear, the noise went on. It was a trying moment for the poor little lonely boy; however, this time he didn't ask Tom what he might or might not do, but dropped on his knees by his bedside, as he had done every day from his childhood, to open his heart to Him who heareth the cry and beareth the sorrows of the tender child, and the strong man in agony.

Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his boots, so that his back was towards Arthur, and he didn't see what had happened, and looked up in wonder at the sudden silence. Then two or three boys laughed and sneered, and a big, brutal fellow who was standing in the middle of the room picked up a slipper, and shied it at the kneeling boy, calling him a snivelling young shaver. Then Tom saw the whole, and the next moment the boot he had just pulled off flew straight at the head of the bully, who had just time to throw up his arm and catch it on his elbow.

“Confound you, Brown! what's that for?” roared he, stamping with pain.

“Never mind what I mean,” said Tom, stepping on to the floor, every drop of blood in his body tingling; “if any fellow wants the other boot, he knows how to get it.”

What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this moment the sixth-form boy came in, and not another word could be said. Tom and the rest rushed into bed and finished their unrobing there, and the old verger, as punctual as the clock, had put out the candle in another minute, and toddled on to the next room, shutting their door with his usual “Good-night, gen'lm'n.”

There were many boys in the room by whom that little scene was taken to heart before they slept. But sleep seemed to have deserted the pillow of poor Tom. For some time his excitement, and the flood of memories which chased one another through his brain, kept him from thinking or resolving. His head throbbed, his heart leapt, and he could hardly keep himself from springing out of bed and rushing about the room. Then the thought of his own mother came across him, and the promise he had made at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel by his bedside, and give himself up to his Father, before he laid his head on the pillow, from which it might never rise; and he lay down gently, and cried as if his heart would break. He was only fourteen years old.

It was no light act of courage in those days, my dear boys, for a little fellow to say his prayers publicly, even at Rugby. A few years later, when Arnold's manly piety had begun to leaven the School, the tables turned; before he died, in the School-house at least, and I believe in the other house, the rule was the other way. But poor Tom had come to school in other times. The first few nights after he came he did not kneel down because of the noise, but sat up in bed till the candle was out, and then stole out and said his prayers, in fear lest some one should find him out. So did many another poor little fellow. Then he began to think that he might just as well say his prayers in bed, and then that it didn't matter whether he was kneeling, or sitting, or lying down. And so it had come to pass with Tom, as with all who will not confess their Lord before men; and for the last year he had probably not said his prayers in earnest a dozen times.

Poor Tom! the first and bitterest feeling which was like to break his heart was the sense of his own cowardice. The vice of all others which he loathed was brought in and burnt in on his own soul. He had lied to his mother, to his conscience, to his God. How could he bear it? And then the poor little weak boy, whom he had pitied and almost scorned for his weakness, had done that which he, braggart as he was, dared not do. The first dawn of comfort came to him in swearing to himself that he would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens for the good deed done that night. Then he resolved to write home next day and tell his mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And then peace came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testimony next morning. The morning would be harder than the night to begin with, but he felt that he could not afford to let one chance slip. Several times he faltered, for the devil showed him first all his old friends calling him “Saint” and “Square-toes,” and a dozen hard names, and whispered to him that his motives would be misunderstood, and he would only be left alone with the new boy; whereas it was his duty to keep all means of influence, that he might do good to the largest number. And then came the more subtle temptation, “Shall I not be showing myself braver than others by doing this? Have I any right to begin it now? Ought I not rather to pray in my own study, letting other boys know that I do so, and trying to lead them to it, while in public at least I should go on as I have done?” However, his good angel was too strong that night, and he turned on his side and slept, tired of trying to reason, but resolved to follow the impulse which had been so strong, and in which he had found peace.

09 January 2024

from Helena, chapter 11, Epiphany (Evelyn Waugh)

'Like me,' she said to them, 'you were late in coming.  The shepherds were here long before; even the cattle.  They had joined the chorus of angels before you were on your way.  For you the primordial discipline of the heavens was relaxed and a new defiant light blazed amid the disconcerted stars.

'How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculating, where the shepherds had run barefoot!  How odd you looked on the road, attended by what outlandish liveries, laden with such preposterous gifts!

'You came at length to the final stage of your pilgrimage and the great star stood still above you.  What did you do?  You stopped to call on King Herod.  Deadly exchange of compliments in which began that unended war of mobs and magistrates against the innocent!

'Yet you came, and were not turned away.  You too found room before the manger.  Your gifts were not needed, but they were accepted and put carefully by, for they were brought with love.  In that new order of charity that had just come to life, there was room for you, too.  You were not lower in the eyes of the holy family than the ox or the ass.

'You are my especial patrons,' said Helena, 'and patrons of all late-comers, of all who have a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents.

'Dear cousins, pray for me,' said Helena, 'and for my poor overloaded son.  May he, too, before the end find kneeling-space in the straw.  Pray for the great, lest they perish utterly.  And pray for Lactantius and Marcias and the young poets of Trèves and for the souls of my wild, blind ancestors; for their sly foe Odysseus and for the great Longinus.

'For His sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate.  Let them not be quite forgotten at the Throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.'

from Little House on the Prairie, chapter 2, Crossing the Creek (Laura Ingalls Wilder)

'This creek's pretty high,' Pa said.  'But I guess we can make it all right.  You can see this is a ford, by the old wheel ruts.  What do you say, Caroline?'

'Whatever you say, Charles,' Ma answered.

Pet and Patty lifted their wet noses.  They pricked their ears forward, looking at the creek; then they pricked them backward to hear what Pa would say.  They sighed and laid their soft noses together to whisper to each other.  A little way upstream, Jack was lapping the water with his red tongue.

'I'll tie down the wagon-cover,' Pa said.  He climbed down from the seat, unrolled the canvas sides and tied them firmly to the wagon-box.  Then he pulled the rope at the back, so that the canvas puckered together in the middle, leaving only a tiny round hole, too small to see through.

Mary huddled down on the bed.  She did not like fords; she was afraid of the rushing water.  But Laura was excited; she liked the splashing.  Pa climbed to the seat, saying, 'They may have to swim, out there in the middle.  But we'll make it all right, Caroline.'

Laura thought of Jack and said, 'I wish Jack could ride in the wagon, Pa.'

Pa did not answer.  He gathered the reins tightly in his hands.  Ma said, 'Jack can swim, Laura.  He will be all right.'

The wagon went forward softly in mud.  Water began to splash against the wheels.  The splashing grew louder.  The wagon shook as the noisy water struck at it.  Then all at once the wagon lifted and balanced and swayed.  It was a lovely feeling.

The noise stopped, and Ma said, sharply, 'Lie down, girls!'

Quick as a flash, Mary and Laura dropped flat on the bed.  When Ma spoke like that, they did as they were told.  Ma's arm pulled a smothering blanket over them, heads and all.

'Be still, just as you are.  Don't move!' she said.

Mary did not move; she was trembling and still.  But Laura could not help wriggling a little bit.  She did so want to see what was happening.  She could feel the wagon swaying and turning; the splashing was noisy again, and again it died away.  Then Pa's voice frightened Laura.  It said, 'Take them, Caroline!'

The wagon lurched; there was a sudden heavy splash beside it.  Laura sat straight up and clawed the blanket from her head.

Pa was gone.  Ma sat alone, holding tight to the reins with both hands.  Mary hid her face in the blanket again, but Laura rose up farther.  She couldn't see the creek bank.  She couldn't see anything in front of the wagon but water rushing at it.  And in the water, three heads; Pet's head and Patty's head and Pa's small, wet head.  Pa's fist in the water was holding tight to Pet's bridle.

Laura could faintly hear Pa's voice through the rushing of the water.  It sounded calm and cheerful, but she couldn't hear what he said.  He was talking to the horses.  Ma's face was white and scared.

'Lie down, Laura,' Ma said.

Laura lay down.  She felt cold and sick.  Her eyes were shut tight, but she could still see the terrible water and Pa's brown beard drowning in it.

For a long, long time the wagon swayed and swung, and Mary cried without making a sound, and Laura's stomach felt sicker and sicker.  Then the front wheels struck and grated, and Pa shouted.  The whole wagon jerked and jolted and tipped backward, but the wheels were turning on the ground.  Laura was up again, holding to the seat; she saw Pet's and Patty's scrambling wet backs climbing a steep bank, and Pa running beside them, shouting, 'Hi, Patty!  Hi, Pet!  Get up!  Get up!  Whoopsy-daisy!  Good girls!'

At the top of the bank they stood still, panting and dripping.  And the wagon stood still, safely out of that creek.

08 October 2023

from letter no. 131 to Milton Waldman, 1951 (J.R.R. Tolkien)

It was begun in 1936, and every part has been written many times.  Hardly a word in its 600,000 or more has been unconsidered.  And the placing, size, style, and contribution to the whole of all the features, incidents, and chapters has been laboriously pondered.  I do not say this in recommendation.  It is, I feel, only too likely that I am deluded, lost in a web of vain imaginings of not much value to others - in spite of the fact that a few readers have found it good, on the whole.  What I intend to say is this: I cannot substantially alter the thing.  I have finished it, it is 'off my mind': the labour has been colossal; and it must stand or fall, practically as it is.

06 October 2023

from Farmer Boy, chapter 15, Cold Snap (Laura Ingalls Wilder)

 The air was still and cold that night, and the stars had a wintry look.  After supper Father went to the barns again.  He shut the doors and the little wooden windows of the horses' stalls, and he put the ewes with their lambs into the fold.

When he came in, Mother asked if it was any warmer.  Father shook his head.

'I do believe it is going to freeze,' he said.

'Pshaw! surely not!' Mother replied. But she looked worried.

Sometime in the night Almanzo felt cold, but he was too sleepy to do anything about it. Then he heard Mother calling:

'Royal! Almanzo!' He was too sleepy to open his eyes.

'Boys, get up! Hurry!' Mother called. 'The corn's frozen!'

He tumbled out of bed and pulled on his trousers. He couldn't keep his eyes open, his hands were clumsy, and big yawns almost dislocated his jaw. He staggered downstairs behind Royal.

Mother and Eliza Jane and Alice were putting on their hoods and shawls.  The kitchen was cold; the fire had not been lighted.  Outdoors everything looked strange.  The grass was white with frost, and a cold green streak was in the eastern sky, but the air was dark.

Father hitched Bess and Beauty to the wagon.  Royal pumped the watering-trough full.  Almanzo helped Mother and the girls bring tubs and pails, and Father set barrels in the wagon.  They filled the tubs and barrels full of water, and then they walked behind the wagon to the cornfield.

All the corn was frozen.  The little leaves were stiff, and broke if you touched them.  Only cold water would save the life of the corn.  Every hill must be watered before the sunshine touched it, or the little plants would die.  There would be no corn-crop that year.

The wagon stopped at the edge of the field.  Father and Mother and Royal and Eliza Jane and Alice and Almanzo filled their pails with water, and they all went to work, as fast as they could.

Almanzo tried to hurry, but the pail was heavy and his legs were short.  His wet fingers were cold, the water slopped against his legs, and he was terribly sleepy.  He stumbled along the rows, and at every hill of corn he poured a little water over the frozen leaves.

The field seemed enormous.  There were thousands and thousands of hills of corn.  Almanzo began to be hungry.  But he couldn't stop to complain.  He must hurry, hurry, hurry, to save the corn.

The green in the east turned pink.  Every moment the light brightened.  At first the dark had been like a mist over the endless field, now Almanzo could see to the end of the long rows.  He tried to work faster.

In an instant the earth turned from black to grey.  The sun was coming to kill the corn.

Almanzo ran to fill his pail; he ran back.  He ran down the rows, splashing water on the hills of corn.  His shoulders ached and his arm ached and there was a pain in his side.  The soft earth hung on to his feet.  He was terribly hungry.  But every splash of water saved a hill of corn.

In the grey light the corn had faint shadows now.  All at once pale sunshine came over the field.

'Keep on!' Father shouted.  So they all kept on; they didn't stop.

But in a little while Father gave up.  'No use!' he called.  Nothing would save the corn after the sunshine touched it.

Almanzo set down his pail and straightened up against the ache in his back.  He stood and looked at the cornfield.  All the others stood and looked, too, and did not say anything.  They had watered almost three acres.  A quarter of an acre had not been watered.  It was lost.

Almanzo trudged back to the wagon and climbed in.  Father said:

'Let's be thankful we saved most of it.'

They rode sleepily down to the barns.  Almanzo was not quite awake yet, and he was tired and cold and hungry.  His hands were clumsy, doing the chores.  But most of the corn was saved.

from Far from the Madding Crowd, chapter XXI, Troubles in the Fold - A Message (Thomas Hardy)

Gabriel was already among the turgid, prostrate forms. He had flung off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and taken from his pocket the instrument of salvation. It was a small tube or trochar, with a lance passing down the inside; and Gabriel began to use it with a dexterity that would have graced a hospital surgeon. Passing his hand over the sheep’s left flank, and selecting the proper point, he punctured the skin and rumen with the lance as it stood in the tube; then he suddenly withdrew the lance, retaining the tube in its place. A current of air rushed up the tube, forcible enough to have extinguished a candle held at the orifice.

It has been said that mere ease after torment is delight for a time; and the countenances of these poor creatures expressed it now. Forty-nine operations were successfully performed. Owing to the great hurry necessitated by the far-gone state of some of the flock, Gabriel missed his aim in one case, and in one only—striking wide of the mark, and inflicting a mortal blow at once upon the suffering ewe. Four had died; three recovered without an operation. The total number of sheep which had thus strayed and injured themselves so dangerously was fifty-seven.

When the love-led man had ceased from his labours, Bathsheba came and looked him in the face.

“Gabriel, will you stay on with me?” she said, smiling winningly, and not troubling to bring her lips quite together again at the end, because there was going to be another smile soon.

“I will,” said Gabriel.

And she smiled on him again.

10 September 2023

from Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (Samuel Richardson)

When I came near the Place, as I had been devising, I said, Pray, step to the Gardener, and ask him to gather a Sallad for me to Dinner. She called out, Jacob!  Said I, he can’t hear you so far off; and pray tell him, I should like a Cucumber too, if he has one. When she had stept about a Bow-shot from me, I popt down, and whipt my Fingers under the upper Tile, and pulled out a little Letter, without Direction, and thrust it in my Bosom, trembling for Joy. She was with me before I could well secure it; and I was in such a taking, that I feared I should discover myself. You seem frighted, Madam, said she: Why, said I, with a lucky Thought, (alas! your poor Daughter will make an Intriguer by-and-by; but I hope an innocent one!) I stoopt to smell at the Sun-flower, and a great nasty Worm run into the Ground, that startled me; for I don't love Worms. Said she, Sun-flowers don’t smell. So I find, said I. And so we walked in; and Mrs. Jewkes said, Well, you have made haste in — You shall go another time.

30 May 2023

from Over to Candleford, chapter XXVIII, Growing Pains (Flora Thompson)

Her mother, with five children to keep and care for, was hard-pressed, especially as she still insisted upon living up to her old standard of what she called 'seemliness'.  Her idea of good housekeeping was that every corner of the house should be clean, clean sheets should be on the beds, clean clothes on every one of the seven bodies for which she was responsible, a good dinner on the table and a cake in the pantry for tea by noon every Sunday.  She would sit up sewing till midnight and rise before daybreak to wash clothes.  But she had her reward.

07 March 2023

Autumn Journal IX (Louis MacNeice)

Now we are back to normal, now the mind is
    Back to the even tenor of the usual day
Skidding no longer across the uneasy cambers
    Of the nightmare way.
We are safe though others have crashed the railings
    Over the river ravine; their wheel-tracks carve the bank
But after the event all we can do is argue
    And count the widening ripples where they sank.
October comes with rain whipping around the ankles
    In waves of white at night:
And filling the raw clay trenches (the parks of London
    Are a nasty sight).
In a week I return to work, lecturing, coaching,
    As impresario of the Ancient Greeks
Who wore the chiton and lived on fish and olives
    And talked philosophy or smut in cliques;
Who believed in youth and did not gloze the unpleasant
    Consequences of age;
What is life, one said, or what is pleasant
    Once you have turned the page
Of love?  The days grow worse, the dice are loaded
    Against the living man who pays in tears for breath;
Never to be born was the best, call no man happy
    This side death.
Conscious - long before Engels - of necessity
    And therein free
They plotted out their life with truism and humour
    Between the jealous heaven and the callous sea.
And Pindar sang the garland of wild olive
    And Alcibiades lived from hand to mouth
Double-crossing Athens, Persia, Sparta,
    And many died in the city of plague, and many of drouth
In Sicilian quarries, and many by the spear and arrow
    And many more who told their lies too late
Caught in the eternal factions and reactions
    Of the city-state.
And free speech shivered on the pikes of Macedonia
    And later on the swords of Rome
And Athens became a mere university city
    And the goddess born of the foam
Became the kept hetaera, heroine of Menander,
    And the philosopher narrowed his focus, confined
His efforts to putting his own soul in order
    And keeping a quiet mind.
And for a thousand years they went on talking,
    Making such apt remarks,
A race no longer of heroes but of professors
    And crooked business men and secretaries and clerks;
Who turned out dapper little elegiac verses
    On the ironies of fate, the transience of all
Affections, carefully shunning an over-statement
    But working the dying fall.
The Glory that was Greece: put it in a syllabus, grade it
    Page by page
To train the mind or even to point a moral
    For the present age:
Models of logic and lucidity, dignity, sanity,
    The golden mean between opposing ills
Though there were exceptions of course but only exceptions - 
    The bloody Bacchanals on the Thracian hills.
So the humanist in his room with Jacobean panels
    Chewing his pipe and looking on a lazy quad
Chops the Ancient World to turn a sermon
    To the greater glory of God.
But I can do nothing so useful or so simple;
    These dead are dead
And when I should remember the paragons of Hellas
    I think instead
Of the crooks, the adventurers, the opportunists
    The careless athletes and the fancy boys,
The hair-splitters, the pedants, the hard-boiled sceptics
    And the Agora and the noise
Of the demagogues and the quacks; and the women pouring
    Libations over graves
And the trimmers at Delphi and the dummies at Sparta and lastly
    I think of the slaves.
And how one can imagine oneself among them
    I do not know;
It was all so unimaginably different
    And all so long ago.